Colombias Infamous Pink Cocaine Is on the Rise in Europe

They can refer you to a mental health professional who can help address your substance use disorder. Pink cocaine often includes both stimulants and depressants. But despite the name, this drug isn’t just colorful cocaine. New batches hardly ever have 2C drugs in them. Pink cocaine is a new designer drug. In addition to anxiety and paranoia, use of this drug can cause psychotic episodes and flashbacks, in which the user relives the drug’s effects long after use.

Pink cocaine is often confused for real cocaine. The anonymous user who spoke to CBS News said she has found fentanyl in her own supply. Those unknowns — about the substance and the high — pushed Frank Tarantino, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency in New York, to issue an urgent warning to CBS News New York.

Despite its nickname Pink Cocaine, this drug does not contain any actual cocaine.Despite its nickname Tucibi, this drug does not contain any actual 2C-B. Unintentional exposure to its contents can lead to increased risk of adverse effects. It could just as easily be made by drug dealers in the United States, who mix toosie meaning drug their own, he said. “If you’ve been drinking, it’s going to make you sick to your stomach and the dissociative effects are not going to be very pleasant,” he said.

Tusi was introduced to Colombia by upper-class young people from Medellín who brought it from Europe.

What Is Pink Cocaine?

You may not be able to predict how you’ll feel when you take pink cocaine. But there’s not enough research to know if suppliers commonly put this powerful painkiller in pink cocaine. They make you feel like drugs that already exist, such as cannabis and cocaine. Pink cocaine hasn’t been around very long, so researchers don’t know much about the long-term effects it may have on people who use it.

A survey of 1,412 recreational drug users carried out earlier this year by Energy Control, a drug harm reduction NGO, found one in five people said they had used tusi in the last 12 months. According to a UN drugs report on the rise of the illegal ketamine trade published this week, this year tusi has been spotted at a music festival in the UK, and also in Austria and Switzerland. The pink powder, dyed with food colouring to make it stand out from other powders and usually smelling of strawberry, was called “tusi” because it contained the psychedelic drug 2CB.

Listen: Pink Cocaine – Uncovering the Truth (Podcast)

• Using pink cocaine puts you at serious risk because you can’t predict what you’re taking.
• Naloxone won’t affect people who don’t have opioids in their system, so it’s safe to use “just in case.”
• Now tusi is the fifth most popular drug in Colombia and is a regular on the narcotic menu in countries such as Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Chile and Panama.
• Drugs found in pink cocaine are highly addictive, and you may not be able to stop using them on your own.

“A lot of people just think it’s this new powder that’s going around,” Palamar said. Naloxone won’t affect people who don’t have opioids in their system, so it’s safe to use “just in case.” And if the mix contains fentanyl — a powerful opioid — even a small amount can lead to death. When ketamine or tranquilizers are present, the drug can slow your breathing and impair your coordination. The contents vary because it’s an illegal drug with no quality control.

What is pink cocaine made of?

This mix of “uppers” and “downers” is sometimes referred to as a “speedball.” There’s concern that some batches may have fentanyl in them. But they’re chemically a little different and may not show up on current drug tests. NPS are a new kind of synthetic drug.

• According to Jones, Diddy hired a “mule” named Brendan Paul who “procured, transported and distributed ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, ketamine, marijuana, mushrooms, and tuci by packing these substances in their carry-on luggage and going through TSA.” Further, Jones named Yung Miami as someone who helped transport the drug to the Bad Boy mogul.
• “It’s a pretty pink powder, and everyone’s starting to use it, when it really started increasing was around mid-2023.”
• Beginning in 2015, tusi began to be exported to countries such as the United States, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile.
• A search of their homes in Spain revealed 8 kilos of what officers called “pink cocaine,” as well as regular cocaine and cash.

Effects

Users often experience a mixture of ketamine’s sedative, trippy high with the more stimulant buzz of MDMA and caffeine. If you or someone you care about is seeking support for substance abuse and addiction challenges, we are here to offer our assistance. With people confined to their homes during lockdowns, drug use became an increasingly attractive option. However, like many drugs of its kind, it poses exceptional dangers.

All About “Tusi”: The New Dangerous Drug Connected To Diddy’s Lawsuit

Nearly 80,000 Americans have died from poisonings linked to carfentanyl in the past two years, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Mixing stimulants and depressants in one dose can confuse your body and increase your risk of complications. You can typically swallow or snort the drug, not inject it. It was perhaps inevitable the drug would start to pop up in Spain, the European country with the closest links to Colombia’s drug world. “This drug is connected to the neo-drug trafficker culture in Colombia,” Julian Quintero, a sociologist and researcher at Social Technical Action, a Colombian drug policy NGO, told VICE World News.

MeSH terms

Pink cocaine is typically a mix of synthetic drugs such as ketamine and MDMA. Call 911 or ask someone to get medical help right away if you see signs of an overdose from pink cocaine (or other drugs). While pink cocaine usually has multiple substances in it, certain tests may tell you a little more about your batch. Pink cocaine includes a mix of drugs that can affect you in different ways.

What’s in ‘pink cocaine’?

The product, made by suppliers in local DIY kitchen labs, varies with each “cook”, and has been found to contain a variety of other drugs, such as benzos, meth and cathinones, although rumours it has been found to contain fentanyl are unproven. Since then forensic tests have shown the drug has morphed into an unpredictable mix, most often containing varying proportions of ketamine and MDMA, bulked out with caffeine. Marketed by dealers on the back of its colour as a high more exclusive than cocaine, tusi is more of a brand than a specific substance. The media has played a role in glamorizing this type of drug and drug abuse behavior, often depicting them in a favorable light in television and movies as a pink powder drug, perpetuating a troubling trend.

Ketamine and MDMA are the most common ingredients, although cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, caffeine, cathinones, and other designer drugs are found as well. “The person who thinks they’re getting cocaine and ends up getting a pretty strong dose of ketamine may be completely knocked out,” Brennan said. Aside from the “happy high” that tusi provides, the downsides include confusion, stomach sickness, hallucinations, changes in breathing, a drop in body temperature, feeling agitated, or even seizures. “Cocaine is a stimulant, and someone who is expecting to get cocaine may know how it affects their body or their tolerance,” said Brennan of the “speedball” concoction.

With repeated use, users can develop tolerance, leading to an increase in the dose consumed and an increased risk of severe adverse effects. ] are trying to educate potential users who may not know how different ketamine is from cocaine. They say there are record numbers of overdoses and there is no way to know exactly what is in pink cocaine. This context created an environment conducive to recreational drug use, in which tusi became an attractive option due to its appearance and perceived effects.

How Does The Drug Make Users Feel?

Factors including drug tolerance, physical stature, how much is used (and frequency), as well as what is in tusi can influence these harmful effects. “Certainly, any customer would assume that there would be cocaine in something marketed as ‘pink cocaine,'” New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said, per Newsweek. Synthetic drugs have long wreaked havoc on communities worldwide, and “Tuci” or “Tusi,” also known as “Pink Cocaine,” is the latest substance to surge in the market. “Pink cocaine” gained even more popularity when it was mentioned in a civil lawsuit against Sean Diddy Combs as one of the disgraced mogul’s alleged drugs of choice.

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about pink cocaine. Drugs found in pink cocaine are highly addictive, and you may not be able to stop using them on your own. Try a small amount of pink cocaine. You may have withdrawal symptoms if you use pink cocaine a lot and then go without it, which can make it hard to stop using it. Like with other drugs of abuse, you may develop an addiction and tolerance (meaning you need more to have the same high). If you use pink cocaine a lot, the stimulant effect can damage your heart and blood vessels.

Tusi contains both depressants and stimulants, shocking one’s system and causing a series of potentially deadly effects. “But it’s interesting how rarely we actually find it.” There is also evidence that tusi can contain bath salts, caffeine, LSD, or mescaline. Because of the nickname “Pink Cocaine,” some have simply believed the drug is a food-coloring version of the typically white drug. Pink cocaine may have surfaced in Colombia, but its ties to Europe can’t be ignored.

Some people report lasting mental health effects, like anxiety or depression, after using it. Despite the name, pink cocaine usually doesn’t contain cocaine at all. Before 2019, the NGO, which tests drugs sent in by the public, received only a handful of drug samples it identified as tusi, but in the last three years it has received 150. The drug has been identified sporadically in Spain since 2011, and one of the first major busts was in 2016, when nine people including some Colombians were arrested for operating a tusi lab just outside Madrid. A search of their homes in Spain revealed 8 kilos of what officers called “pink cocaine,” as well as regular cocaine and cash. Last week, Spanish police announced they had busted seven members of a gang who are alleged to have been involved with distributing cocaine and tusi in Madrid and Malaga after smuggling it in drug-filled suitcases by air from Latin America.